John Brown: The Man Who Started the Civil War?

10/26/2011 6:51PM

Tony Horwitz, author of the new book "Midnight Rising," talks with WSJ's Dennis Berman about the role abolitionist John Brown played in setting the forces in motion that let to the U.S. Civil War. Plus, what his story teaches us about conflict and rebellion today.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... me revolution to America in eighteen fifty nine in these John Brown ... who might be today and spread the law Street Journal ... here is the special guest twenty four was former ... Journal roving correspondent ... and author of a new book called Menin rising to that discusses ... the famous or perhaps forgotten John Brown and his role in American history thanks ... yes OK so I just revenue but there are a few sentences in most history books to the spelling John Brown ... you explore his full story a new book why isn't porn and what isn't ... Tejas Brian Whelan his raid on Harpers Ferry in eighteen fifty nine is really one of the catalysts for the Civil War ... up to that point of the country is still sort of muddling along and looking for compromise and ... of but this tension is building up its ... tooling around the nation and he puts a match to it by ... reading this federal arsenal of Harpers Ferry ... and trying to free so it's France you describe it be a raid was probably not the best plan to military operations he had a ragtag ... group ... who was John Browning with people who coalesced around and run ... jump around ... it came from and so classically American background who is from old Binky farming stock ... for most of his life he was ... an American on the make ... he wasn't on ... some freak or madman the way people imagined him but yet he was really radicalize but his charms on abolition is them ... really became an organized movement in the eighteen thirties when his young man and he absorbs this ... up and takes in a very militant direction right and there seems to be that one defining Ensign is life Indecency described in thinking his own writings and recollections what was the debt towards the end of his life he writes that he saw slave boy beaten with a shuffle when he was well and that this self propelled him towards what he called eternal war ... on slavery ... I don't know that it was that simple I think it was a combination of factors his father was an abolitionist ... um but I think it was really more the times than anything I've that nobody was standing up to what abolitionist called the slave power at the modern era of Libya ... with the storming of Fort drum or Fort Knox summer Camp Pendleton but ... that isn't that why they're there isn't an exact agreed with the Romley to Armour federal Armour isn't the whole country in one of them was ... at Harpers Ferry Virginia and his idea was who's going to see is the hundred thousand guns there ... begin to free an arm slaves and essentially start a ... rolling campaign of liberation ... up but I think ... he really did it does much for shock value ... as for the logistical uses the actual guns ... which in fact he never touched it did during the time control them right ... others also ... the book ... is this strange sense of sort of ... on air ... the classical sense of ... on there and ... decency even though he did kill people ... in the process of nothing Teyssen on that ... um ... it seems like so remote from our world today a sense of I ... it's it's also very remote from what's about to follow with the Civil War I mean you're about to have Americans to slaughter each other by the hundreds of thousands ... at Harper's Ferry in the midst of this fight ... um he orders breakfast various hostages from the nearby ... hotel on that one one ... one points on ... one of these men is taken up by the other side ... are in the one to Lynch him in a woman ... does this sort of Pocahontas projects and ... Gold climbs into his lap so they can drag him away ... I think what was inching it in your book you as ... does ... help of ... people came to regard it ... at the moment right and then after that the intervening period thereafter ... I he became a hero sermon to him a lot of people ... on his his ... actions took on a moral home and um ... tells about what you found it's one of the iam great ironies of this story with ... John Brown who thinks of himself as a man of action on ... he of abolitionist who just talk he refers to as milk and water abolitionist ... slavery must be met with force ... well when he tries that he fails miserably ... and ultimately he trounced through his words were on he has this tremendous of moral clarity ... and determination and it's actually cuts through decades of cancer in ... for very patient and says ... slavery on one side gotten Justice on the other hand which side are due on an ... unruly of forces Americans to take side and you regard him as a hero or is it that he was on the right side and therefore he is Rivet respectively ... he was certainly on the right side of history ... By and somewhat of a visionary ... he accomplished ... it took six years of for ... the war to end in slated to be a fully free ... um but no it's not a hero ... nor do I regard him as a monster in this is one reason I wanted to write the book is ... almost everything that gets written about him falls on one side or the other he ... resorted to Ranges people he's such a ... polarizing figure ... aam but I think he's much too complicated to fit comfortably in one over another ... the exodus ... into the B of ... the defaulter revolution the country today is is there potential for John Brown of two thousand on them ... there is always the average job around and and that's part of what makes an interesting the odd sort explodes on the national scene ... almost out of nowhere due to an obscure were out ... of business men were gone bankrupt ... I think in troubled times that change does tend to bubble up from the extremes ... in surprising ways ... that being said I when the quake was happening today with eighteen fifteen on to have a ... senators to being caned on the floor of the Senate ... where you have a really the country on the verge of a ... you know what that's all I hope but it ... was not eighteen fifteen on a what does strike me is similar though ... when you read the news ... accounts of the day ... um ... this a very shrill tone on both sides ... and no one very interested in compromise has certainly per ounce not he's not a reformer he once revolution going on and I think figures like that and voices like that are very appealing in troubled times with ... a simple solutions um ... and that it kills you very Visse really ... oh we're going to you don't do this by forcing go in ... he's the sort of human battering ram ... and this makes him very appealing to bullishness in the north right ... if you are talking to ... people today as you are ... he was in ... the spam pages what we've learned from jump around from eighteen fifty nine from the Sobel War about discourse about ... finding common ground ... um what's the lesson ... of history is there one is that it is the lesson perhaps ... sometimes justify it ... I mean I think go on the admiring site here was a man who was willing to take on the great moral issues Tuesday ... and I think you have to admire that this was not a popular position abolitionist where ... tiny minority of militant abolition slight brown weren't tiny tiny minority ... the New York Times called him a while than absurd freaks though ... I Joe this was not a ... popular position but I think another lesson is really um ... individuals can make a difference or say we seen the collective action people ... through social media ... the Telegraph ... in eighteen fifty nine riding of May relatively new gum made made a big difference in how the information was the spread of ... how this ... information and connectivity ... impacts ... the story John Brown well it sort of an early ... example of that ... because the Telegraph in the explosion of ... Newswires and newspapers in this era it's really one of the first breaking news stories in the nation on ... a word gets out very quickly up along Telegraph lines ... of correspondence swarmed to the scene ... you know in in the courtroom where he makes the famous beach of this is reported instantly around the nation so ... I don't think he could've had any impact to fifteen years earlier ... is there any ... moral issue today Dinty thing has ... the same impact I mean ... I would say probably not dot weensy was the last ten years we've seen ... um she writes came and age is probably the main issue at the forefront mean that as ... I was a pleasant and settled in the country ... um ... is that an ... Aygaz ... where we are today with snacks is there anything I think it's hard to find something that has the kind of the moral of ... the clarity of the idea of abolition is them up on the other hand it does make you think about what are things we take for granted today and that was so why is the sole Xactly that in a few generations ... of were a few decades Americans will look back and say ... of how we treated animals and I'd I don't know what it will be hurt or maybe something ... of because we take a Emancipation for granted ... Americans in eighteen fifty nine Lincoln said slippery might last another Sentry ... of people wearing ... more into it but they were ... they were doing a lot about it ... um so there may be things like that right under and those that to whether it's our climate ... or something else that ... on people in the future will say one thing thinking ... alright ... well twenty think so much for joining us back to the gentleman was last seen in the Journal says I've never been in these new autos and so it would've been the pre nine eleven so ... different location different building three times a daring task on exchange of a Kaieda's book is Ben Knight Rising ... is published by Henry Holt getting Ulrike ... by twenty Horowitz I'm Dennis Berman of Wall Street ...